In 1980s Los Angeles, a bank was robbed every hour

[billy99k]

Robberies still happen. The banks and police just don't make it public. I worked for a bank around 2005-2010. There was an attempted robbery at least 3 times when I worked there. Nobody outside the bank really knew about it and it never made it to any news outlets.

I wonder how common it still is.

[0cf8612b2e1e]

However, the score is frequently minimal, where they just take what it is in the front cash registers. Random website [0]

> The vast majority of bank robberies are relatively unsuccessful affairs, having netted criminals just $7,500 in 2010 on average, according to the FBI.

[0] https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/06/11/what-you-sho...

[strict9]

Still happens somewhat regularly, as I've found following scanner accounts for my city on twitter.

But today the bags are tagged with gps trackers and they're almost always caught.

[fells]

> The banks and police just don't make it public.

Is there evidence of this? Anytime someone mentions declining crime rates its always with "well, they clearly don't report it!"

[wslh]

Does bank offices have a lot of cash now? Just thinking that the use if card and mobile payments reduced the cash in place.

Just curious ;-)

[lsllc]

If anyone hasn't seen Michael Mann's Heat, put it on your to-watch list. It's an excellent movie and of course features a bank robbery in LA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_(1995_film)

[sharkweek]

Best bank heist scene in any movie.

Other favorites include The Dark Knight’s opening, and as far as escaping a bank robbery goes, Baby Driver’s opening chase was 10/10 (even though a Subaru couldn’t do what he was doing but I’m willing to let that go).

The Town and the original Point Break have great ones as well.

[ks2048]

And if you're interested in bank robberies and Al Pacino (this one in NYC and a true story), you have to include Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Day_Afternoon

[toomanyrichies]

One of my favorite movies. Mann recently wrote a novelized sequel, "Heat 2", and has said it's his next film project. I read the book and am, let's say, not optimistic about the prospects for the film version.

I hope he proves me wrong.

[nonameiguess]

The real-life showdown in North Hollywood was even better. Two bank robbers shot it out with the LAPD for over an hour and dumped over a thousand rounds onto the street before they finally went down, after half the department and SWAT all showed up. It was one of the events that sparked police militarization to take off because the police were so badly outgunned. Dudes had full body armor and fully-automatic rifles and the handguns and shotguns the cops were using didn't even slow them down. I and half the city probably watched it happen live, too, thanks to news helicopters being on scene the entire time.

90s were a crazy time, man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hollywood_shootout

[IshKebab]

The best thing about Heat is the sound design. One of the very very few films that makes guns sound as loud as they actually are.

(No HN pedantry about SPL please.)

[whartung]

Heat is always high on these lists, but if you’re looking for something a bit more down to earth I highly recommend “Hell or High Water”.

[mcpackieh]

Make sure to check out Michael Mann's Thief too. It doesn't have bank robbing per se, but it has some very memorable safe-cracking scenes. Great movie all around.

[toomanyrichies]

Fans of "Heat" may also be interested in Mann's 1981 film "Thief". I saw it after hearing it had a lot of thematic overlap with "Heat". It stars James Caan and Willie Nelson, which I took as a selling point.

It's been awhile since I saw it but I remember not hating it.

[elchief]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den_of_Thieves_(film) is not as good as Heat, but is an homage, and is a pretty fun LA bank heist movie

[dopeboy]

My favorite of all time. He also released a book, Heat 2, if you want more. I am 30 pages in and it’s good so far.

[mongol]

First movie where Pacino and De Niro played against each other. One of the best movies I know.

[mysterydip]

The local branch of my bank changed to having no tellers, ATM-only. There's a couple people inside to talk loans and such, but they have no cash. I wonder if this is one of the reasons (besides cost savings having less employees).

[lotsofpulp]

The only a reason a bank as a building even needs to exist is because cash is a thing.

With electronic databases keeping track of funds and movement of funds, the banks’ purpose is reduced to being a lender, which requires much, much less infrastructure.

If we had a constitutional right to an electronic funds account with an inalienable right to receive and send money, there would be zero need for banks. Their remaining purpose would be to be an underwriter or lender, at which point you would just describe them as an underwriter or lender instead of a bank.

[chiph]

My credit union did this several years ago - marketing them as "Cyber Branches". They're basically ATMs with video conferencing added.

There are advantages, like increased employee & customer safety and lower costs. But I like to use uncirculated bills as gifts and now there is no one there to get them for me.

[ghaff]

I'm always a bit surprised by just how much prime downtown real estate sizable bank branches take up. I can't imagine I'm that atypical in rarely using an ATM much less other local banking services. Presumably small businesses deal with banks much more frequently but banks still seem to take up a big physical footprint for the amount that most people use them.

[corbezzoli]

I think that’s great, I don’t know what’s taking so long. ATM that dispense money have been around for decades, why isn’t the other way around the default by now? Using the ATM literally saves the bank money.

[adrr]

I hate ATM only branches. Can’t get new bills for the Xmas or Chinese new years.

[OfSanguineFire]

That is a pretty popular development, I have encountered banks where cash withdrawals are ATM-only for nearly a decade. What sucks, however, is if the bank imposes a fee after X number of ATM transactions (sometimes as little as two withdrawals). Then, with a maximum ATM withdrawal of 300€ or so, withdrawing a couple of thousand is going to incur a larger amount of fees than with the old cash from the teller system. Of course, with the world moving away from cash, fewer and fewer people will be affected by this.

[lostlogin]

The title is like the dad joke.

‘Every day a pedestrian is hit by a car on Main street. He is getting really annoyed.’

[RockyMcNuts]

the crime panic is an outlandish joke to anyone alive in the 80s

https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2023-10-20/killi...

[01100011]

Yes and no.

It's interesting to see the debate going on in Seattle regarding crime right now. What I can say is that, while crime rates may not be scary compared to, say, the early 90s, what is different is that in the 90s you had to go to bad areas to experience it. Now the crime comes to you. It is much more widespread in areas 'normal' people frequent. Part of that has to do with the revitalization of downtowns that occurred then(when millennials and gays began cleaning them up?), I think. Back in the 80s and early 90s, you didn't go to downtowns unless you worked there.

[Clamchop]

There's a now-notorious group of voters born two or three decades before the 80s that largely don't think it's outlandish at all.

[andsoitis]

prior discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25511220

[setgree]

this post opened my eyes to important context about 80s and 90s action movies. Watching them 10-20 years later, I often thought, how are there so many darn banks getting robbed? Turns out, ‘Heat’ is more realistic than I understood (at least in this one respect).

Spike Lee’s ‘Inside Man’ is kind of a throw back to that era’s preoccupations.

[Condition1952]

Could nobody foresee it? That’s an unlucky bank.

[Simulacra]

Banks in small towns, and remote areas, still present an enticing target for robbers.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

Though it must be said the percentage of armed customers increases the more rural you go.

Due to local laws, it's a fairly safe bet in Los Angeles that few if anyone has a weapon more dangerous than a pocket knife. In small town Texas or Alabama, there will be a much higher percentage of armed customers, and a non-zero number will have a hero complex.

[mikequinlan]

Couldn't they have posted some police at that bank to stop the thefts?

[jrflowers]

This bank sounds like a terrible workplace.

[michael1999]

Boy-howdy — Vietnam left a mark.

[greesil]

Cite yer sources

[ddmichael]

Good times.

[Lammy]

> With more than six million vehicles and more than 1,000 miles of freeway upon which to roam, Los Angeles has created a landscape ideal for bank robberies.

This entire article is anti-freeway anti-freedom-of-movement propaganda. In the future the only thing that will have freedom of movement is capital, not humans.

[HomeDeLaPot]

Entire article? Did you read it all? That was brought up early on, but the rest of the article focused on other reasons why bank robberies spiked (e.g. cocaine) and why they declined again (e.g. less coke usage, harsher sentencing).